


Conversations

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Series: Welcome [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 11 Speculation, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 22:59:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13087221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: Emily tries to come to terms with the presence of Scully and Mulder in her life.  Sequel to "Welcome."





	Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my fic "Welcome" and is also inspired by the Season 11 casting rumors.
> 
> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

“Will,” she says, in the nicest voice she can muster, “could you help me make dinner?”  She’s trying her level best to keep things going smoothly, but she can’t take another minute of this atmosphere.

“Sure,” Will says, getting up quickly, almost too quickly.

“Thanks,” Emily says.  “We’ll just go get started,” she adds, turning to their—the other two—Dana and Mulder—she doesn’t know how to think of them.  “Is chicken all right with you?”

“Fine,” Mulder says, and Dana nods.  They don’t offer to help this time, for which she’s grateful.

Will doesn’t know much about cooking, so Emily hands him a potato peeler when they get to the kitchen.  “Here,” she says, taking four potatoes out of the refrigerator.  “Peel these.”  He nods and begins peeling; she starts on the chicken, watching him out of the corner of her eye.  A part of her wants to tell him to cut out the sulking, that he’s making things even more difficult than they have to be, but she knows that isn’t fair.  She doesn’t know if there even is a right way to respond to all this.  Last night she stared into the bathroom mirror for almost five minutes, wondering why she wasn’t freaking out.  “How’re you doing?” she says instead.

Will shrugs.  “How do you think?”

“Not very well, I would guess,” she says, “based on the way you’re acting.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s not supposed to mean anything,” Emily says.  “I’m just worried about you, okay?  I want to help you with this.  Because you’re my brother.”  The one thing that hasn’t changed.

Will is quiet for a few minutes, attacking a potato.  “I’m not mad at you, anyway,” he says at last.

“Well, that’s good,” says Emily.  “Are you mad at Mom and Dad?”  Maybe she shouldn’t call them that now, but old habits die hard.

“I don’t…no,” Will says.  “No,” he repeats, more forcefully.  “And I still don’t know why we’re supposed to believe everything these people say about them.  We don’t even know them.  They could be making all of this up.  The whole thing.”

“You think they’re making the whole thing up?” she asks.  “Will…they look like us.”  That was the part that had felt the strangest: looking across the living room and seeing those faces.  _They look so familiar,_ she’d thought, and _It’s them, from back then,_ and _She has my hair, my eyes_.  And Will’s the same, of course, blue eyes and red hair—they’d always said it was such a coincidence, their parents and the two of them echoing it back, and she wonders now how naïve they really were—and Mulder’s profile is just like his, and they have to believe this part, she thinks, whatever else they do or don’t believe.

“Well,” Will says, “even if they are who they say they are, that doesn’t mean they’re good people.  It doesn’t just change who my family is.  You know what Mom and Dad always say.”

“I know,” Emily says.  _We wanted you more than anything in the world.  We’re a family by choice.  We love you._   She hopes at least some of it was true, somewhere down the line.  But right now… “I don’t want to tell you what to do, Will.  But I do believe them, for what it’s worth.”  She’s pretty sure Will actually believes them too, that that’s what’s making this so hard.  Whatever they’d like to think, it’s difficult to explain away the scene from Friday night.  Their parents hadn’t confessed, but they hadn’t denied.  Their mom: _We did what we had to do_.  Their dad, at the last: _We didn’t mean for it to be like this…you wouldn’t have had to know_.  She slices into a chicken breast.  “I remember them a little, and they were good to me.  I think.  You could try just talking to them.”

“I don’t want to,” Will says. 

“Okay,” she says.  They work on the food for a little bit.  “You’ll probably have to some time, though.”

Will slaps the potato peeler down on the cutting board.  “I said I don’t want to.  And I don’t know why you want to either.”  He stares at her, challenging.

“I…I don’t know,” Emily says.  “I just do, I guess.  It makes things harder, not talking to people.”  And she likes them, at least a little, she thinks.  She can tell they’re kind; she can tell they want what’s best but don’t know how to get there yet.  No more does she, but if this is what life is going to be now—if the two near-strangers sitting in the living room are somehow their parents—shouldn’t they try to make something good out of it?  She doesn’t think Will’s ready to hear all that, so she just says, “I know this really hurts.  But I don’t think they’re so bad.”

“You don’t think they’re so bad?”  His voice is loud now; she hopes Dana and Mulder can’t hear.  “They came in and ruined our lives, Emily!  They took our parents away, and you don’t think—”

“They didn’t do it to hurt us, Will,” she says.  “And they know you’re upset.  They said you can talk to them, and they’d understand—”

“Don’t talk about me with them,” he snaps.  “Don’t do it, all right?”

“All right,” she says, holding up her hands.  “I won’t.”  She slides the chicken into the oven and sets the timer.

“Anyway,” he says.  He’s looking down at the potatoes, not at her.  “It’s easy for you to act all happy.  They didn’t…they didn’t decide they didn’t want you.”

He doesn’t always like her hugs, but he lets her hug him now.  “Oh, Will,” she says softly.  “They do want you.  I can tell that.”

“Well, they didn’t always,” he says, his voice muffled.  She’s not sure about that, but she doesn’t say anything.  “Who says they can just change their minds now?” 

“I know.  I know,” she says.  “It’ll be okay, Will.”  It’ll have to be, somehow.

He pulls away after a while, drawing his sleeve across his face.  “Do you think they’ll try to make me go live with them?” he asks.  “Because I don’t want to.”

“I don’t know what they’ll want to do,” she says.  “Maybe you should ask them about it.”

He ignores that.  “Maybe I could stay with you,” he says.  “Could I?”

Emily thinks about it.  “If you really needed to,” she says.  “But my apartment is so small.  I don’t think you’d really like doing it.”  She imagines the two of them, crammed into her little one-bedroom; they’d always be on top of each other, and he’s not very good at doing laundry.  She doesn’t know if she can point that out now.  “I think it’s something we should all talk about.  All four of us.”  He ignores that too, but she knows he’s heard.  They work on dinner quietly for a while and then lean against the kitchen island and wait for things to cook.  She squeezes his shoulders gently.

“Do you want me to stick around tomorrow?” she asks him, when she’s taking the chicken out of the oven and he’s mashing the potatoes with considerable force.  “I could call in to work.”

He looks at her.  “Why?”

“If you needed me.”

Will shakes his head.  “No, I’ll be in school, anyway.  But thanks, though.”  He pauses for a moment.  “But maybe you could come back for dinner?”

“Of course I could,” she says.  “Now let’s all eat, okay?”

“I’m not going to talk to them,” he says.  His voice sounds like he wants her to approve.

“Then don’t,” she says. 

She wishes he would, though.  It’s so uncomfortable, at dinner.  Will won’t look up from his plate, and he barely even talks to her.  She and Dana and Mulder talk about safe things.  She explains how to pick the right glasses for your face shape.  They come close to exhausting the topic of Dagoo.  Both of their faces look so sad.

After they eat, she suggests Scrabble.  It’s not one of her better ideas.  She’s used to their easy family games, not this silent mess.  She gets a triple word score with QUAKER and Will doesn’t even react.  It feels like a waste.

 

Emily drives Will into school on her way to work the next morning.  They mostly listen to the radio.  “Have a good day,” she says, as they pull up in front of the high school.

“Thanks.”  He leans over and hugs her quickly before he gets out of the car.

“Hi, Emily!” Tanya says as she walks in the door at work.  “How was your weekend?”

“It was all right,” she says; it may be the most misleading comment she’s ever made.  “How was yours?”

“It was great!” Tanya says.  “Sam took me to this new restaurant…”  She listens to the story of Tanya’s date.  Maybe that’s what she needs to do right now.  Just focus on the here and now.  She clips on her EMILY nametag.  She spends the morning helping people choose glasses.  They go away happy.

At lunch she checks her phone.  There’s a text from Steve—he was out of town all weekend for his grandmother’s eightieth birthday, which is probably just as well, but he’s back now.  _Hey, missed you, dinner tonight?_

She texts back.  _Sorry, promised Will I’d come home tonight.  Some family stuff._ She doesn’t know how to begin to tell him, but she’ll have to, some way.

_Everything ok?_

She eats her sandwich and thinks.  _Getting there, I hope.  I’ll tell you when I see you.  Soon, ok?_

_Ok.  Love you baby._

_Love you too._

She puts her phone back in her pocket and goes back out into the store.  She spends the afternoon helping people choose glasses.  When she heads out at five, she’s gotten something done.

 

Mulder’s in the kitchen, getting a glass of water at the sink, when she gets back to the house.  “Hi, Emily,” he says.  “How was work?” 

“It was good!” she says.  “I helped a lot of people find glasses.  Nothing too unusual.”  She decides to have some water too.  “How was your day?  Did you find everything you needed?”

“What—oh, you mean around the house?” Mulder asks.  “Yeah, we were fine.  We didn’t really do much of anything.  Walked around outside a little.  The place is beautiful.”

“Yeah, it really is,” she says, smiling.  “I love living here.”  She doesn’t know if that will hurt or help.  Maybe they’ll feel better if they know she had a good childhood.  From what she can remember, the last time they saw her she was having a pretty bad one. 

She can’t tell what he’s thinking from what he says, which is, “Yeah?  That’s good.”

“Is Will back yet?” she asks.

Mulder nods.  “He got back around five.  He went right upstairs, though.”

“Well, he probably had to get cleaned up after practice,” she says, even though she knows that’s likely not the whole story.

Mulder goes along with her.  “That makes sense,” he says.  “He…what sport does he…”

“Cross-country,” she says.  “He’s really good.”  She knows she told Will she wouldn’t talk about him with Mulder and Dana, but she hopes this won’t do any harm.

“Cross-country,” Mulder says, and they both sip at their water.  “Well, anyway, that’s where he is.  And your m—Scully—Dana, she thought she’d lie down for a little while.  So that’s everyone accounted for, I guess.”

Emily nods.  “You call her Scully?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says.  “That’s sort of our thing.”

“That’s nice,” she says, “having a thing.”  They seem like they’re good for each other, from the little she’s seen, like they know they can lean on each other even during something like this.  “How long have you been married?”

“Oh,” he says.  “We’re not.”

“Oh!” she says.  “Oh…I just thought…”  She hopes she doesn’t sound shocked.  She knows it’s not her place to judge.  “Because of Will…and Dagoo…”  Well, now she just sounds stupid.  People can have dogs without getting married.  But she really never thought they wouldn’t be.

If he’s bothered by her reaction, he doesn’t show it.  “Yeah, it hasn’t happened for us,” he says.  “But we’ve been a couple for almost nineteen years now, give or take.”  Now she really doesn’t understand why they aren’t.  “It’s for the long haul.”  She nods, not sure what else to say about it.  “Anyway,” Mulder says, “you know we don’t have to talk about Dagoo all the time, right?  I’m worried we’re getting into a rut.”

Emily’s surprised by that too, but she can’t help laughing.  “I didn’t want to say anything…”

“Well, we’re all equally responsible,” Mulder says.  “But now that we’ve noticed, let’s put a stop to it.  He’s one of the most annoying dogs I’ve ever met.”

“That’s terrible,” she says, “saying that about your own dog.”

“He’s more Scully’s, anyway,” Mulder says.  “She’s the dog lover.”  She wonders if that’s why she loves them too, if it’s in her blood.  “And I didn’t say he was _the_ most annoying.  That was her last dog.”  Emily inclines her head questioningly, and he elaborates.  “Back in the nineties.  She picked him up on a case.  Your mom’s always doing that.”  She draws in her breath, but he doesn’t seem to notice he’s said it, this time.  “We were in Minnesota, and we met a man…”

She leans in as she listens to the story.  “Wow,” she says at the end, thinking about it.  She doesn’t know if she could do something like that, doesn’t think she’d want to.  “You must really like what you do,” she says at last.

He looks at her thoughtfully.  “Some of the time, yeah,” he says.  “Some of the time it makes things hard.”  She nods.  She guesses this whole situation is one of those times.

 

Emily comes home for dinner the next two nights too, because Will says he wants her there.  She’s not exactly sure what for.  He still doesn’t really talk to her either, except when they’re alone, and even then he seems to have drawn away from saying anything about how he feels.  They make dinner together again on Tuesday night and talk about the history test he has coming up.  She makes dinner with Mulder and Dana on Wednesday, but she goes and knocks on Will’s door after they eat, when he’s gone upstairs; they mostly sit on the bed, though, not talking.  Still, when she’s on her way out, he asks, “Will you come back tomorrow?” and she says that she will.

She comes in quietly, late on Thursday afternoon.  Voices in the living room.  “I knew it wouldn’t be easy.  But I didn’t…”

“I know.”  The sounds of shifting on the couch.  “Here.  Come here, honey.”  Muffled sounds.  At least one person crying, maybe two.

“It’s my fault, anyway.  All my fault.”

“No.  No, it’s not.  If I hadn’t left you guys…”

“That’s not your fault either…I could have…”

“Maybe if we’d…”  More of what sounds like sobs.  Definitely two people.

“He doesn’t want anything to do with us.  How’re we going to make this right?  Can we even…?”

“I don’t know.  But we’ll try.  We’ll try.”

“Do you think Emily—”  And she knows she can’t listen anymore.  She shouldn’t even have been listening to this.  It’s private; it’s not her business.  She hurries up the stairs, quietly so they won’t hear her, and goes into her bedroom and closes the door.

She takes a book off the shelf and opens it.  She keeps thinking about what she heard.  She wishes she hadn’t.

 

She tells Will she’s not going to come for dinner on Friday.  “I’m going to hang out with Steve,” she says.  “I haven’t seen him for almost a week.  I’ll come back on Saturday.”  She feels a little bad, but not that bad, and Will doesn’t try to argue with her about it.

Emily texts Steve, and they make plans.  She goes back to her apartment after work; she opens the windows to air things out a little, wipes some dust off the table, puts water on to boil.  Not for the first time, she’s glad she’s with someone she’s known more than half her life.  She can’t imagine talking about this with someone any less familiar, and by now she can’t imagine keeping it all in.

Steve shows up a few minutes early, as usual; he’s carrying a Tupperware full of cake.  “We had a lot of leftovers,” he explains.  “From my grandma.  I froze it, so it’s still good.”  He sets it down on the table, wraps his arms around her waist, and kisses her firmly.  “Missed you,” he says into her mouth.

She clings to his shoulders, wondering if he can kiss all the tension out of her.  “Missed you too.”

He tells her about the birthday party while they chop vegetables and cook the pasta, letting her keep her news until they’ve sat down.  “So what’s going on?” he asks.  “With your family.  Are things okay?”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Emily says.  She takes her time finding the words, knowing he’s listening.  “It’s our birth parents,” she says at last.  “Mine and Will’s.  Well, our mom and Will’s dad.”  She leaves out the part where she doesn’t exactly have a dad, because she doesn’t know how to explain it and she’s worried it might be too weird, even for Steve, and tonight she just needs him to keep loving her.  “They’re here.”

“Oh,” Steve says.  “Oh, wow, Em.  That’s huge.  Are you okay?  Do you like them?”

“I don’t know,” Emily says.  “I do like them.  They’re really sweet people.  I think I’d be okay…I mean, it’s weird, but I think I would…but Will’s just really upset.  So there’s that.”

Steve nods.  “Yeah, that would make it hard,” he says.  “Does he not like them?”

“Not exactly,” Emily says.  “He just won’t talk to them.  He doesn’t want to get to know them.”

“Well, I guess that’s his right,” Steve says.  “I mean, I don’t know exactly how these things work, but aren’t they supposed to leave him alone if he wants them to?”

“I guess so, usually,” she says.  “But it’s more complicated.  Our parents—not these ones, our adoptive parents—well, it looks like they were part of some shady stuff.  That’s why our birth parents came.  They’re in the FBI.  And it looks like, what with everything, it’s going to be them taking care of us, which means Will, really, because, you know, he’s the only one who’s a minor, and so he kind of has to be around them.”  That’s all she can give him.  She can’t explain any more.

He’s staring at her.  “That’s crazy,” he says.  “Em, that’s crazy.  It sounds like something out of a movie.”  She nods.  “And I can’t believe it, anyway,” he adds.  “Your parents—they’re such great people.  Everyone knows that.  Are you sure there hasn’t been some mistake?”

“Pretty sure,” she says.  “It’s kind of—they weren’t who we thought they were.”  She knows that Will thinks Dana and Mulder betrayed him, back when he was a baby and then again a week ago, but this is the part where she feels betrayed.  “You know I lived a couple of different places, right?  Before they adopted me?”  He nods, and she goes on.  “I don’t remember a lot of it, and I guess that’s weird because I wasn’t that little, but I do remember not really feeling at home.  Not really feeling safe.  And even when I came here, I kept thinking, sometimes, that someone was going to take me away again.  Even, you know, when I got older.  I sometimes worried about it.  But I guess I thought…I guess I thought I could trust them.  And they would love me whatever happened.  And now I don’t know anymore.”  She can’t swallow.  “I just don’t know.” 

Steve comes over and holds her, letting her cry into his shoulder.  “I’m sure they love you,” he says.  “Whatever they did, I’m sure they love you.”  She’s not so sure, but she lets him say it.  She can’t tell him about her cells, the protection that lives inside her, what she thinks might be the only part of her they cared about.  A flash of memory, everything so so hot and Dana holding her close, whispering, _It’s all right, it’s all right, sweetheart_.  She holds Steve tight until she’s done crying.

He kisses her wet cheeks.  “What’s she like?” he asks after a few minutes, when they’ve both gone back to their food.  “Your birth mom.  Do you feel like you’re connected?”

“Well, we look alike,” Emily says.  “She’s nice.  Smart.  She’s a doctor.  I think I’ll like her a lot, once I get to know her better.  She’s just really upset now, because Will’s upset.  Same with Will’s dad.  He’s nice too, though.  Funny.  They’re a little bit different, I guess.”

“Different how?” Steve asks.

She doesn’t know how to answer that.  They simply are, clearly living on a different scale from anyone she knows.  And there’s the part where they aren’t married, but she doesn’t want to say that, because she doesn’t want Steve to think badly of them.  “Just different,” she says, and he nods and doesn’t press.

They break out the cake after dinner, swapping forkfuls, even digging into it with their fingers like kids.  It’s good and rich.  After that they watch a movie on TV, and she falls asleep with her head on his lap.  “Wake up, sleepy,” Steve says, kissing her awake when the movie’s done.  They kiss for a long time then, and his hands stroke her hair.

The wall clock says 10:15.  “I think I’ll go home, maybe,” she says.  “I told Will I’d be there tomorrow.”

“It’s late,” Steve says.  “Do you want me to drive you?”

“I think I’ll be okay,” she says.  “Thanks, though, baby.”

He kisses her again.  “You can always call me to talk,” he says.  “Any time.  I mean it.”

“I know you do,” she says, and for a moment she doesn’t want to say goodbye.

 

It’s a little bit after eleven when Emily gets back to the house, but there’s still a light on in the living room.  She pokes her head in as she goes by; Dana’s there, reading a book.  “Hi,” she says, looking up.  “I didn’t know you were coming back tonight.”

“I thought it made sense,” Emily says.  “How was your day?”

Dana shrugs.  “It was all right,” she says.  “Nothing special.  But I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come down here and read for a little.”

“What are you reading?” Emily asks, coming into the living room.

Dana shows her the cover; it’s _Wuthering Heights_.  “I picked it up from one of the shelves,” she said.  “I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course,” Emily says.  “That’s one of my favorites.”

“I haven’t read it in a long time,” Dana says.  “But it’s a good one.”  She smiles as Emily sits down on the couch next to her.  “How about you?  How’d your day go?”

“Good,” Emily says.  “Work went well.  And I had a nice time with Steve.”

“That’s good,” Dana says.  “Did the two of you go anywhere?” 

“Just to my apartment,” Emily says.  “We had dinner and watched a movie.  And we talked.”  She knows Dana isn’t going to ask her for more details, but after a moment she goes on.  “We talked a lot about all of this.  Everything with you and Mulder, I mean.  And Will.” 

She wonders if Dana will be upset, but Dana smiles at her.  “I’m really glad you have someone you can talk to about it.  I know you’re—you’re not showing it like William, but this must be really difficult for you too.”

She wants to say no, of course it’s not really difficult, but she finds herself nodding.  “Yeah,” she says.  “You don’t mind?  That I’m not talking about it to you?”

Dana shakes her head.  “I want you to know you can, of course,” she says.  “Whenever you want to.  But you don’t really know me yet, sweetheart.”  The word sounds the same in her voice now as it does in Emily’s memories.  “It makes sense for you to want to talk with someone you know better.”

“I do want to talk about it with you,” Emily says.  “Maybe soon.”

“I’d like that too,” Dana says.

“I think I remembered something else from before,” Emily says, “when Steve and I were talking.  I remember feeling really hot, but you were holding me and telling me it was all right.”

Dana nods.  “You were so sick,” she says softly.  “I didn’t know what to do for you.  But I didn’t want you to be scared.”  She looks down.  “I didn’t think I could save you.  I thought I’d lost you.”  Then she hugs Emily, tentatively at first and then more tightly.  Emily tries to think if it feels familiar and decides it doesn’t.  But she hugs back anyway.  _This is my mother, somehow,_ she thinks.  _This is my mother hugging me._

Dana pulls away and brushes the hair out of Emily’s face.  “You’ve been so good about all of this, Emily,” she says.  “Thank you for—for trying so hard.  But don’t think it’s your job to fix everything, okay?”

“I just want Will to be all right,” Emily says.  There she goes, talking about him again when she said she wouldn’t.  It’s hard not to bring him up.

“Me too,” Dana says with a sigh.  “But you know, Mulder and I, we did make some big mistakes.  It’s up to us to show him he can trust us.  That we love him.  We love you too, you know,” she adds quietly, and Emily lets the words sit.

“So are the two of you going to stay out here?” she asks.

“We need to figure that out,” Dana says.  “But right now I’m thinking it would probably be best, at least for the next several months.  I don’t think we should move Will, especially during his senior year.  We’ve put him through enough.”  She sighs again.

“I’d like that,” Emily says.  “Having you here, I mean.”

“I’m glad,” Dana says.  She brushes Emily’s hair back again.  “You can go to bed, if you want,” she says.  “You don’t have to stay up with me.”

“I think I’ll stay up for a little bit,” Emily says.  “Maybe we can just sit a little.  If you don’t mind.”

Dana shakes her head.  “I don’t mind,” she says.  She turns back to her book, and Emily leans against her shoulder, following along with the words. 


End file.
